Robots are more than just hardware.

Science fiction is becoming fact, a world in which a helper robot lives with you, gets you through the day and even becomes your trusted friend – It’s finally here.

The demand for helper robots is a booming and powerful industry, the millitaries of first world countries are working overtime to meet the need as a whole new industry gains momentum.

The demand for robots is fueled by the existence of those boring, dirty and dangerous jobs that needs to be done. Those low-paid jobs that are believed to be beneath human dignity in today’s life, or at least in a developed world.

Whats better than a life-like robot to release us from this obligation.

When you think about it, robots need to be good company if we are to have them in our lives, sharing our homes and workplaces or, have them do things for us. And of course, this requirement applies to all robots, not just walking talking ones, but also the artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in much larger systems or on the web.

User-friendliness is only obtained through natural speech and effective computing, which allows the AI to “get to know you” by recognizing the patterns of your emotional state over time, getting it from your tone of voice and body language.

The big names in our wonderful tech world like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, are putting so much effort into software that can understand any language known as chatbots, seeing them as the next best thing.

The Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in March 2016 at the San Francisco Build conference that chatbots, or “conversations as a platform”, are the next best thing in the computer world, as important as the shift to graphical user interfaces, the web browser and touchscreens.

Quite a big claim since so many would argue that these have been important steps forward in the way humans interact with computers.

Chatbots have huge potential to put computing resources within easy reach for those of us that are non-technical users. You can use chatbots to make appointments, book your car in for a service, buy flowers for your special someone, arrange a holiday, find places to live or even explore your special interests.

All of these and much, much more has become possible when you can simply ask for it to be done via a natural speech digital assistant, or chatbot.

They already sort of exist in Microsoft’s Cortana, Facebook’s M, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and so on. These smooth-talking chatbots will be the point of contact between you and the many worker bots.

This is like having a combined executive assistant and concierge, a trusted college that just knows your every need and seamlessly coordinates the activities of the lover level agents as they go about their business in the cloud.

Creative writers are finding great employment these days in the world of high tech, reported recently in the Washington Post.

Writers who once wrote poems and screenplays are now devoting time into creating likable characters for chatbots and giving them cool things to say. The new breed of smart digital assistants sounds good, look good and are virtually backed by the latest AI.

 With the trends towards integrated computing environments that gives people cross-platform access to their cloud-connected application and data, it is reasonable to expect that your digital assistant will literally go with you when you put down one device and pick up another, or go from one location to another.

Example, when you leave your house in the morning and get into your self-driving car that has been quietly charging its batteries from the solar panels on your house’s roof, the same digital assistant that you were interacting with in your home office becomes the voice of the car that you now give directions to.

On any day of the week, knowing that you normally go to the office at this time on that day, the car asks in an appropriate conversational tone if that’s where you are headed, like any good driver or chauffeur might.

The next week, you jump in your car and tell it to take you to work, but the digital assistant reminds you that you have a doctor’s appointment in your schedule and should we go there instead?

On your way to your doctor’s appointment, you look through and send a few emails that your assistant has drafted. You also have time to discuss some content on a business proposal, with help from your research assistant-cum-driver.

The idea of a natural speech intelligent assistant will still likely go through the four stages of idea acceptance outlined by British geneticist, known as John Burdon Sanderson Haldane.

These four stages are:

1.       This is worthless nonsense.

2.      This is an interesting, but perverse point of view.

3.      This is true, but quite unimportant.

4.      And finally, I always said so!

In 5 – 10 years from now, when we’ve gotten over our skepticism and become more reliant on our digital assistants, we will wonder how we ever got along without them.

Either that or Skynet takes over the world and we need JohnConnor to save humanity. What do you think would be a good feature for technology to bring into play in the next 5 – 10 years? Should we actually go down this route? What’s your opinion?